Preludes To The End
by wikiaddicted723
Summary: "She knows she's loved him for far longer than she's willing to accept, doesn't know how to begin to explain to herself how it came to be. She struggles with the words, knows she has it in her to say them, but refrains. Fears."


A/N: This came to be as a Tumblr Prompt from Ambre (aka Elialys) that went and turned smut. though the smutty part is, admittedly, not that big. It takes place somewhere between 6B and Os, because that little unknown time-slot is simple irresistible. Remember to leave a review by clicking on the orange button at the end of the page, it keeps the plot!Bunnies well fed. XD

* * *

><p>It's the cold that awakens him, the chill of early morning in the middle of winter sinking deep into his bones, the absence of the sun apparent in the blue ambience of the room. The cold, he thinks, and the distinct lack of the warm body that should be pressed tightly against his on the double bed, the cold rumpled sheets and her lingering scent the only vestiges of her presence in the room.<p>

He rolls over, sits up. The mild anxiety coiled in the pit of his stomach quickly dispelled by the sight of the scattered clothes on the floor, mindlessly strewn around in their undressing earlier in the evening. Peter can't help the sigh of relief that makes it past his lips, the sudden tension in his muscles dissipating as his body seems to sag in weariness. He runs a hand through his face, rubs the last dregs of sleep away as he relaxes. Even after a couple of weeks of steady and strangely undisrupted bliss he's still afraid that she'll regret the decision she made that night in his kitchen and call it off.

Some part of him realizes that, perhaps, he deserves nothing more than that. That it would be a punishment adequate enough for his offenses, to have a taste of what could be and see it slip slowly through his fingers, unable to do anything about it. He knows what that feels like, in a twisted sense, even though he wishes every day that he didn't. But she made the decision to forgive him, and that's the difference between them, what he admires the most in her: her resilience, her courage. Her unwavering belief that there is good in him when all he sees is darkness. What good is he, when he's meant to end worlds by his very existence?

He has not chosen to forgive himself. He doesn't think he can.

He stands slowly, twisting around to ease the kinks in his back after sleeping curled around someone else for most of the night. He makes his way around the room and snatches his boxer shorts from where they lie crumpled on the ground near the other end of the bed, his steps falling with a softness that only comes from having to tiptoe around Walter's fragile sleep cycle for the last three years. He grabs his pajama T-shirt for good measure before he exits the room, the chill of the coming dawn eliciting goose bumps from his flesh. He has always hated the cold.

He finds her in the living room, standing by the wall Walter keeps for old, dusty family pictures, the boy he was and the one that has been lying six feet beneath the ground, somewhere in a cemetery for the past twenty-five years indistinct to his eyes. He tries not to pay much attention to that fact anymore; he guesses it's a father's love that makes a man do such things. He's made his peace with it.

Even if he's not sure he'll ever understand it.

She's wearing his shirt, a Prussian blue button up he decides he's very fond of as it adorns her supple figure, the fabric rippling down to her upper thighs as she absentmindedly rubs her calf with her foot, still staring intently at the frame in her hands, her loose hair cascading down her back. He's pretty sure she hasn't noticed him standing there, seeing as not even her posture acknowledges his presence. He has always liked watching her when she thinks she's out of sight, relishing in the different changes in her demeanor as the situation demands, her little twitches and nuances a language all its own.

He's also pretty sure that there's nothing but bare skin under that shirt and the mere thought makes him stir in a thousand different ways.

He has realized that he will never stop wanting her and knows it is not a thought, not a supposition or a theory, it is a universal constant. An immutable law in the physics of a universe where she's the sun and he can do naught but orbit around her. He's long since stopped being surprised at the fact. Olivia Dunham is a force of nature, and nature will not –cannot– be denied.

He pushes off from the doorjamb he's been leaning on and makes his way towards her, the barely perceptible creaking of the old floorboards beneath his feet alerting her of his being there as she whips her head around to look in his general direction, the violent reflex a sequel of their line of work, he knows.

"Hey" he says, voice rough with sleep, a smile in his tone. She looks at him then, the same way she's always looked at him, in a way that no one has ever done before her: like he's something other than convenient, a person, not an asset. Like she can't quite believe he's really there, with _her_.

"Hey" she responds, a bashful smile blossoming on her face as she turns away from him with the pretext of studying the portrait in her hands, hiding her face from view in a demure gesture that he finds adorable. He wraps her in his arms from behind, pressing her against his chest and brushing his lips against the side of her face, still elated at the fact that he _can. _She wraps her free hand around his where it lies on her stomach and gives it a squeeze, turning her head in time to catch his lips with her own in a lingering kiss as she steps back into him.

"Good morning," she says against his cheek, her voice velvety smooth in the silence permeating the house. They have learned, way before there even was a relationship (back when denial came on an everyday dosage), to treasure moments like this: moments of quiet when the end of the worlds is more an abstract possibility than harsh reality, moments when their responsibilities allow them to simply _be_, and hold each other.

"Morning?" he snorts, "This doesn't qualify as morning, not for another couple of hours at least. The sun isn't even out yet." He's never been much of a morning person, to her infinite amusement. She chuckles, squeezing his hand before stepping forward to put the portrait back in its place, making sure its as straight as when she picked it up.

"She was beautiful," she whispers, her eyes tracing the figure of his long dead mother on the wall.

Elizabeth Bishop had indeed been beautiful, her posture at ease in the picture, yet regal. She had been a woman who knew how to handle herself in circles of men like his father and Bell and had withstood them with an instinctual intelligence and charm that had been deemed unique. Above all, she had loved him enough that she had been willing to care for him, when she knew he was not the child she'd given birth to, the one that had died in her husband's arms. And though he knew she had lied to him until she herself had believed her words, he was sure that he would never be able to feel anything but gratitude towards her.

If there is anything good in him, she put it there.

"She was," he says as he tries to avoid the lump in his throat that makes itself known every time he lays eyes upon her form, his voice quite, weary. He has never liked talking about his mother, the memories of their struggles when Walter was not around like slow poison in his veins, threatening to consume the warmer feelings he has developed for the man in the latest years of his life. He's forced to remind himself that it had not been his father's fault, in the strict sense of the word. That perhaps it had been better that way, with Walter's absence keeping his impairment out of the way.

He can't even imagine what it would've been like for his mother; to care for a mentally ill adult that was but a shadow of the man she had chosen to spend her life with, in addition to the task of looking out for an angry teenager, all while working three jobs to support the household.

And he can't forget that, in hindsight of recent revelations, it had most probably been him who had driven her to an early grave. Him, and the weight of the lies she'd woven.

Olivia seems to sense his discomfort, turning around in his arms to look him in the eye, encircling his hips loosely with her arms. She knows the look on his face, it's meaning and the thoughts that accompany it; evident in the way he clenches his jaw, a symptom of his worries. She sees it in the mirror every other day.

"She did a great job, you know?" she tells him, bringing a hand up to play with the short hair on the nape of his neck, "with you."

He barks a laugh, his smile grim as he shakes his head, looking away from the intensity of her stare. He refrains from commenting; not wanting to start what he knows is a potential argument.

Instead, he remembers something Walter told him once.

"I'm glad you choose to see me the way you do," He tells her, the weight of his misdeeds and the lies he's told heavy on his chest.

"Peter," she says in that soft, reproachful voice that she uses on him when he's being stupid, nuzzling his throat with her nose in an attempt at reassurance; he knows words are not her forte though she uses them well when she so chooses. She still prefers touch if she has any say in it, as does he. He's not complaining.

He kisses the top of her head, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as his hands roam her back. Her words warm him; fill a space in his chest he hadn't realized was empty. He knows he doesn't deserve her. He also knows he's too selfish to stop fighting for her in his own, silent way.

They're still new at this, both of them. New at lowering their ever-present barriers to let the other through, still not used to sharing things they hold close to their chests. But they try, and as long as they have each other there is always time.

"She would've loved to meet you," he says; because she deserves his efforts, because he wants to let her in, let her know him better than anyone ever has. Though he suspects she might already know him better than he knows himself, "she would have liked you, I think."

He can feel her smiling quietly against the fabric of his shirt, but the silence is heavy, oppressing, and it's too early and his head is too foggy with the feeling of her body against his to be having a conversation of the sort. So he does what he does best: he jokes.

"She would've especially enjoyed seeing you boss me around. She was always very fond of doing so herself."

She catches on to his intentions quicker than a thought, chuckles against his throat, the vibrations on his skin raising the hair on the back of his neck as she presses a kiss against his collarbone, her cool hands making way under the waistband of his boxers to caress the skin above his buttocks, stepping ever closer into him. She's seducing him, in her own way, telling him that she does want him in subtle messages he's starting to recognize and interpret.

He has no desire to deny her.

Peter cups her jaw, kisses her softly, his lips making patterns on her face that hold no meaning, yet say everything. He brings his hands to her shirt, unbuttons it slowly, makes sure to touch every inch of skin revealed in his wake as he bites softly on the tender skin below her ear, making her legs tremble and her hands press his hips against her own.

She steps away from him, grabs his hands in her own, smiling. He doesn't think he's ever seen her smile as much as in the last couple of weeks, and his chest swells with pride at being the reason behind it.

"Come to bed with me," she says, making it a statement instead of a question, effectively bossing him around. He laughs, presses a kiss to her temple.

"Yes, boss," he says, tightening his hold on her as he lets her lead him to his bedroom in what, he thinks, has become a welcome tradition. He has never ascended longer stairs.

He but rips the shirt off of her the moment the door is locked behind them, cupping her breast in his hand as the other wraps around her waist to press her against him as she slowly walks them backwards towards the bed, his straining erection pressed tight against her lower stomach as it ripples and shudders. She moans into his mouth in appreciation, her hands working his shirt up and off his body, dropping it unceremoniously to the ground amongst the rest of their clothing before coming to play with the light dusting of hair that covers his chest, tracing paths across his stomach with her short-but-sharp nails that make him shiver and pant.

He wastes no time in picking her up, her legs instinctually wrapping around his waist as he manages to step out of his boxers, turning them around until the backs of his legs touch the mattress. He sits, groaning at the delicious friction the position exerts on them both, looking up at her as she runs her fingers through his scalp in an affectionate caress that he seeks to reciprocate, his fingers running up and down the milky expanse of her back.

She kisses him for the hundredth time, sucking his lower lip between her own as her tongue darts out to tease him. She loves the way he touches her, sure yet gentle, loves that even though neither of them is above wanting the sex they manage to make it so much more than something merely physical.

He moves, she moves, and he's inside and the rest doesn't matter. It disappears, blurs in a collage of sensation and breath, sound and sweat, and the rhythm of her body on his, the rocking of their hips, his hands on her waist, her mouth on his. And when the wave comes, relentless in its advance, she receives it with open arms; lets the currents take her, and him with her.

Afterwards, with the sun high up on the sky, they lie in each other's arms, satiated, spent, content. They have the world in each other and, for a couple of hours at least, the one crumbling outside the door doesn't matter. Doesn't exist.

There is only them.

He knows he loves her, he's not sure he's brave enough to tell her.

She knows she's loved him for far longer than she's willing to accept, doesn't know how to begin to explain to herself how it came to be. She struggles with the words, knows she has it in her to say them, but refrains. Fears. The last time she loved someone out loud she was left with ashes, and promises unfulfilled that flew away with the wind.

There are no certainties anymore, in the world they live in, the worlds they've seen, but there is hope and he has to believe in it, reach for it and embrace it in the depths of evergreen that pool beneath her eyes. She believes there's something worth saving in him and, if anything, he has chosen to believe in her.

He always will.


End file.
